


勢力拮抗

by Val Mora (valmora)



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Homestuck
Genre: 2nd-person POV, Caliginous Romance, M/M, Unrequited Hate, quadrants for everyone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-29
Updated: 2012-05-29
Packaged: 2017-11-06 06:32:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/415841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valmora/pseuds/Val%20Mora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Derivative Work In Which A Young, Disowned Human Prince From A Fantasy Setting Is Consumed With Caliginous Feelings For A Long-Lost Reincarnating Messiah Figure After Discovering That The Messiah Figure Is Not Actually Old and Decrepit But Rather Young And Very Powerful, Told In Four Scenes, Over At Least Seven, Maximum Thirteen, Episodes, Including A Caliginous Romantic Rival And Several Implied Fight Scenes. Rated LG-6 For Caliginous Longings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	勢力拮抗

**Author's Note:**

> The title is, according to the internet, a four-character idiom meaning _a struggle for supremacy between two equals_.
> 
> Originally posted [here](http://homesmut.livejournal.com/12138.html?thread=35999082#t35999082) at the Homestuck KM, unprompted.

You expected the Avatar to be old, hunched over, a coward, full in his power. Instead he is young, a fine fighter, and an Airbender.

You have never seen an Airbender before. They are all long gone, all the people of the Air Nomads, and watching him you think: _I must take him to my father and be reinstated; I will be prince again._

And then he utterly defeats you and your officers, and fights his way off the ship.

You could spit molten nails. The ship’s railing sags under the heat of your hands, the rage inside of you. Close and far, miserable, blocked into this passage of ice, while he is free.

You will catch him, and bring him to your father, and be reinstated.

\---

Zhao’s ambitions could ruin you. Will ruin you, gone unchecked; and so you fight him. He is better than you, yes, but you know this style of old, this give and take of flame and fire, and swallow down the bitterness in remembering your father’s rage.

(You think of the Avatar, the boy, smaller than you, thin and lively-looking, who moved so differently from what you had always known, and your hunger to find-catch-win your father’s approval is enough.)

\---

What is it to you if some Earth Kingdom town goes to ashes for hiding him from you? What is one town to the succession of a nation, to your honor?

The Avatar flees from his fight with you because it will damage the town, this little nowhere-place with its woman-warriors and its statues of a long-dead Avatar. You can understand that, though the anger curls hot in your chest, of being nearly _ignored_ , of being too low in his esteem to fight properly.

And then he drowns the fires out.

You are made of incandescent rage. You will hunt him down and find him, tie down his beast and his friends and fight him until all he can think upon escaping - you could never kill him; that would harm you both - is _Let me leave a trail for that Fire Nation warrior to find me, so we can fight again._

You will bring him back to your father, and be prince again.

\---

And then Zhao, again, gets in your way, when you are so close to the Avatar you can taste the ash from your own fires, the cold clear brightness of his power striving against yours.

You don’t mind that he escapes, this time. Zhao would take him from you, would crush him and break him to pieces and never appreciate the might of him, his potential, his power.

You’d never be able to go home again.

It has to be you who brings the Avatar in. Ever and only you, and if watching the Avatar flee makes you think, grim with rage and expectation and exhilaration, _Next time, next time,_ it is only to be expected. He is, after all, a rival worthy of respect.


End file.
